At least nine teenage seminary students died after they were swept away by a flash flood in the Negev Desert in southern Israel on Thursday, an ambulance service said. Military helicopters and search and rescue units scoured the Zafit river bed that flows into the rift valley at the southern end of the Dead Sea after a flash flood caught a party of 25 trekkers in the usually bone-dry area by surprise. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the event as a “terrible disaster” and praised rescuers for their efforts.

Like most teenagers in the United States, Luis looked forward to his 18th birthday. Unlike most teens, Luis’s excitement was not about being able to vote or buy cigarettes or other American rites of passage associated with turning 18, but about the prospect of being released from custody and reunited with his family.

A group of Washington, D.C., teenagers staged a “lie-in” outside the White House on Monday to show their support for the victims of last week’s mass shooting at a Florida high school — and to demand action from President Trump on gun control.

Bailey Holt, 15, was killed when an unnamed 15-year-old student opened fire with a handgun just before classes started at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, a small rural town of about 4,500 people. Holt’s boyfriend was also shot in the face during the deadly rampage and remains in the hospital in critical condition along with three of his fellow classmates, the Mirror reported. A second student, 15-year-old Preston Cope, was also identified as a victim of Tuesday’s shooting.